War Poems | Poemist

Popular War Poems

Exposure

by Wilfred Owen

I

1 Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us ...
2 Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent ...
3 Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient ...
4 Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
5 But nothing happens.

6 Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
7 Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.

......

Autobiography

by Nâzım Hikmet

I was born in 1902
I never once went back to my birthplace
I don't like to turn back
at three I served as a pasha's grandson in Aleppo
at nineteen as a student at Moscow Communist University
at forty-nine I was back in Moscow as the Tcheka Party's guest
and I've been a poet since I was fourteen
some people know all about plants some about fish
I know separation
some people know the names of the stars by heart

......

The Poem Of Zuhair

by İbn Abî Sûlmâ Zuhayr

'Does the blackened ruin, situated in the stony ground between Durraj and Mutathallam, which did not speak to me, when addressed, belong to the abode of Ummi Awfa?

'And is it her dwelling at the two stony meadows, seeming as though they were the renewed tattoo marks in the sinews of the wrist?

'The wild cows and the white deer are wandering about there, one herd behind the other, while their young are springing up from every lying-down place.

'I stood again near it, (the encampment of the tribe of Awfa,) after an absence of twenty years, and with some efforts, I know her abode again after thinking awhile.

'I recognized the three stones blackened by fire at the place where the kettle used to be placed at night, and the trench round the encampment, which had not burst, like the source of a pool.

......

Miners

by Wilfred Owen

There was a whispering in my hearth,
A sigh of the coal.
Grown wistful of a former earth
It might recall.

I listened for a tale of leaves
And smothered ferns,
Frond-forests; and the low, sly lives
Before the fawns.

......

I Am Waiting

by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting

......

Recent War Poems

Morals

by Alana Alpres

In this world of capitalism's grasp,
Where wealth is worshiped and morals lapse,
I stand at a crossroads, torn between two fates,
One that feeds the fire, and one that breaks the gates.

On the one hand, I am tempted by the lure of success,
To climb the corporate ladder and fulfill my own excess,
But on the other, I hear the call of a different way,
A path of purpose and meaning, not just chasing pay.

......

fear

by marina jane

beautiful soul,
you deserve to be free,
yet you walk through a trench of such great misery.

and when a helping hand is drawn,
you wave it away and just keep marching on.

your heart is in shackles,
your thoughts are unclear,
when you sleep, do you dream of having no fear?

......

Letters home

by Dorothy Eleanor

You're a note sent from heaven,
To a battle field in hell.
I wish I could kiss you here
and the worries farewell.

Every letter written carefully
By a steady hand in ink.
I hold your picture to my heart,
Smell your scent, tears on the brink.

......

It’s Time to Shout

by Jeffrey Pipes Guice

There was a time when America was prosperous…
It was a time when American life was good…
It was a time when families prayed together…
We lived as one proud nation, as we should…

We used to travel across our great country…
As a family, together on holiday trips…
Gas was affordable and available everywhere…
Unlike today, with the oil apocalypse…

......

Letter to Ellie

by Renee Weng

Dear Ellie,

the days are long, the nights
even longer. I witnessed them pass
again. I gnaw my teeth, stuff
my heart down lungs and hear others
unleash a howl, roaring at
fireworks scarlett in sin.
They fall around me;
drifting leaves amongst the

......